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Overview

In an age where reality and science fiction are colliding, Richard Cox’s extraordinary debut thriller takes its place as an all-too-believable novel of white-knuckle adventure. For when an ordinary man makes one great leap for mankind, he triggers a chain of events that endangers his life, fractures his certainty, and plunges everyone he knows into a place where nothing is what it seems.

Cameron Fisher is bored. With his wife, Misty. With his job as an accountant at NeuroStor, the high-tech microchip firm. With everything about his life—until he is offered five million dollars to test a secret new technology that uses a wrinkle in quantum physics to transmit matter from one place to another. His employer’s high-stakes brainchild is ready for its first human test. And Cameron Fisher is all too happy to oblige.

One moment Cameron is sitting naked in a seven-by-seven-foot metal room in Houston; the next second he is in a laboratory in Phoenix—trembling now not with fear but joy. Within hours, Cameron will be free to go home. But first there is a celebratory drink—and a strange and scintillating meeting with a spectacularly beautiful woman. Then he’s being followed by men with guns . . . and suddenly Cameron is running, stumbling, falling into a world that looks like his own, but in which he has become a ragged stranger, accused of murder and pursued by people who want him dead. It appears that NeuroStor’s invention has changed Cameron. Next, it will change the entire world.

With its stunning twists, sensual adventure, and raw, psychological suspense, Rift takes readers on a thrill-a-second ride to one last amazing choice for Cameron Fisher. A gripping and utterly satisfying work of storytelling magic, Rift asks the ultimate question: What if you had to die to find out what it really means to be alive?

Product Details

About the Author

Richard Cox was born in Texas and currently lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he is at work on his next novel. Visit the author’s website at richardcox.net.

From the Hardcover edition.

Read an Excerpt

one

I have this recurring dream. It involves my own death. My funeral, really. The service is held at Hemingford Unity Cemetery, where every so often a body is hidden in the red clay north of Wichita Falls, Texas. I suppose this particular cemetery was chosen because my father lies there, and because I will eventually bury my mother's body beside his. But did Misty really think I belonged with them? I've lived in Houston for nearly twenty years now, and the drive to Wichita Falls is not short.

The first sign of something wrong is the number of attendees. My wife and my mother and two uncles are here. My best friend, Tom Bishop, is here. And a minister, but of course he was hired to come.

The images generated by my subconscious are impressive in detail. A great, ageless oak tree casts a skeleton shadow across the congregation. Rows of headstone soldiers stand guard over long-dead namesakes. And beside my casket stands a mound of dirt covered with a blanket of synthetic grass.

What's missing is the eulogy. The hired minister finishes his prepared words and looks to pass the baton to the next participant. But no one steps forward. I guess Misty thought Tom would say something, and I guess he thought she would do the honors. My mom suffers from Alzheimer's disease, so no one would have mistaken her for the speaker. Finally the minister asks someone, anyone, to come forward and say a few words for the deceased. Misty and Tom briefly exchange glances and then ignore each other. The uncles watch red dirt ruin their wingtips. My mother just stares into space, probably remembering the time when she was eight and someone in school set her only pair of shoes on fire.

"Very well, then," the minister says and walks away.

After a moment the handful of mourners wander to their cars, fire up engines, and leave the cemetery. I remain with a bearded groundskeeper, who removes the synthetic turf, lowers the casket, and shovels red clay back into the hole from where it came.

Recently I saw a therapist and told him about the dream.

"So," he asked, "do you think this dream might have something to say about you?"

"Yet you seem relatively successful to the outside observer--six-figure household income, beautiful wife. What exactly should you be doing?"

My answer was silence. I was either unable or unwilling to think of something.

A couple of days went by, the question still unanswered, and eventually I mentioned my concerns to Misty. She delivered an Ann Landers-esque quote that has increasingly and alarmingly become her standard response to any unpleasant matter she encounters.

"Something will come up," she said. "It always does."

Two days later Batista made me the offer, and I've never seen my wife wish so badly that she had been wrong.

Channel-surfing on our bedroom TV is doing nothing to take the edge off. It's not like I haven't agonized over this decision to the point of absurdity, but today is the day, after all.

Now is the time.

I've already passed by three "talk" shows, and while I've seen a lot of shouting and a fair amount of screaming, I've yet to encounter any talking. I flip absently, past a baseball game and an infomercial and a "Star Trek" installment, on my way to CNN when I happen upon a televangelist.

". . . lost, just like I was lost, that's right, just like I was lost. When I lived in that sin-infested town, that Babel nestled among the hills and jutting into the bay like an angry finger, like a vile middle finger thrust hatefully into the air . . ."

I can't remember seeing this particular fellow before, but here in Texas, TV preachers are as common as houseflies. According to the caption in the bottom right corner of the screen, his name is Yale Thayer. He's a thin man with pale skin and fire-red hair.

". . . begins at conception, not when some godless scientist says it does. They want to farm human beings, my friends. They want to harvest cells from someone who could turn out to be your sister, your best friend, your aunt Ruby who tapes 'Wheel of Fortune' every weekday on her VCR. And they hide behind their own corrupt morals, trying to influence public opinion by giving false hope to those unfortunate enough to contract incurable diseases. 'We can save lives!' they cry! 'We can help people who are alive!' But to do this they want to steal the life away from innocent babies, each with a soul given to them by God and saved by His Son, Jesus Chr--"

I touch the television remote and end his tirade midsentence. I'm supposed to be packing, so I jack up the volume on CNN and head back into the bathroom, where toothpaste and cologne and grooming implements patiently wait to be dropped into my suitcase. When I happen to look at my reflection in the mirror, the fear apparent in my own eyes unnerves me.

I carry the suitcase back into the bedroom--now ready for underwear briefs and white T-shirts--just in time to catch the beginning of a Breaking News Event brought to me by a striking, articulate brunette.

". . . don't really know exactly how long the group has been missing. Police in neighboring Corpus Christi notified the FBI after numerous missing person reports were filed by concerned friends and relatives who claimed to have lost contact with suspected members over three weeks ago. Authorities expressed skepticism, however, when questioned about sources who estimate the group had swelled to over nine hundred members in recent weeks."

A short, muscle-bound fellow dressed in a navy blue FBI jacket appears on the screen behind the caption: Special Agent Gerald Weir.

"We are currently gathering information on the group, which calls itself Primordial Carbon," he says. "Apparently this group made a pilgrimage into a remote area of the King Ranch and chose a gathering place about sixty miles south of Corpus Christi. As to the allegation that their numbers approach one thousand, we have reason to believe this has been somewhat exaggerated. But I would like to assure the public that any and all leads are being investigated."

The beautiful brunette anchor further explains the significance of this news event, declaring it the largest mass disappearance of humans in recent history, and asks us viewers to tune in to CNN for a special report beginning promptly at--

She's been remarkably calm today, my wife, considering her attitude over the past three weeks. When I first told her she threatened to divorce me. She didn't care about the money, the five million dollars NeuroStor offered for the test. She didn't care when I explained that my job was being eliminated, that our entire company's financial health--and my retirement stock options--might rest on the success of the transmission machine. Instead she said--quite predictably, I might add--All I need is you, Cameron. Sure it is. Easy to say when there is plenty of money to go around.

The idea of divorce scares the hell out of me. Maybe, considering our declining intimacy over the past several years, it's something we should have discussed a long time ago. But when you marry young like Misty and I did, and when your relationship stretches on for five, ten, and now fifteen years, it's not easy to give up the comfort, the bedrock upon which your life rests. You want to know the laundry is going to be done every Sunday afternoon. You get used to the daily ritual of cooking familiar meals for two. You lull yourself to sleep every night with the rhythmic pattern of your wife's breathing. Boundaries box you into predictability, and eventually you grow dependent upon the razor-wire walls that form the perimeter of your life.

But something changed in me the day Batista made the five-million-dollar offer, and in the end I realized there was no way I could not accept. That recurring dream, the one where I go to my grave with no eulogy? It was trying to tell me something, and I'm going to heed its warning.

I'm going to do something with my life.

Misty looks over at me periodically as she negotiates the Beltway traffic, and while her voice trembles with anger, I read more from her eyes. Like fear. And grief. And uncertainty. The one thing she knows for sure: She doesn't want to let me go.

"You're crazy, Cameron. Do you hear me? I should have you committed."

The overcast sky paints the city in shades of gray, and even the conditioned air in the car feels uncomfortable and sticky. Fifty or so miles from the Gulf, Houston is close enough to draw tropical moisture out of the ocean but too far away to be cooled by any sort of sea breeze effect. That's one benefit of choosing Phoenix as my transmission destination--not a whole lot of humidity in Arizona.

The radio mumbles a conversation I can't quite hear. Misty's speed hovers just below the posted limit of seventy miles per hour, which is interesting when you consider that she drives like a demon most of the time. She's making time to stage one final confrontation, you see.

"Really, Cameron," she says. Her eyes shift but never quite make contact with mine. "Will you please seize this last opportunity to reconsider? I've told you a thousand times that I don't care about the money, and I don't believe the job market in Houston is as bad as you say it is. You could find something. I could make more money. Don't act like this is the only choice you have."

"Honey, we've gone over this. It's not just the money--"

"You're just bored with accounting, that's all. You need a vacation. That's why I think you should go ahead and visit Tom. Fly out there and stay for a week and play golf every day. I know you'll feel better."

"Misty . . ."

"Please just fly. Just take an airplane." One of her hands leaves the steering wheel and rummages into her purse. She pulls out an envelope and shoves it at me. "I bought this for you. A direct flight to Phoenix. It leaves at five-thirty."

"Airplanes go down all the time, Misty. And someone had to try them first. Someone always has to be the first."

"It's a first-class ticket, see! I think they serve drinks before the plane even takes off."

"You don't underst--"

"I understand that you might die!" Her eyes have gone red now, and she just glares at me with them.

"Misty, watch the road."

She drops the ticket into my lap.

"The road. Of course. Don't want to be injured on the way to your death."

Misty already knows I've come to terms with the unlikely botched transmission. I think she's trying to find similar ground on which to stand.

"I'm not having this debate with you again, Misty. It's not just the money. It's not about my retirement or even trying to save the company. I want to do something. I want to make a difference, for myself. For everyone."

Now she looks away from me, out the window. I can't see her eyes, but I hear the tears.

"What about me, Cameron? Why won't you do something for me?"

"Misty . . ."

"Don't think I don't know the real issue here. You're not trying to make a difference. You're just tired of drifting."

"Drifting?"

"You heard me. Sometime after Luke died you lost your way, and now you're a drifter. A lost soul. And I'm the one to blame because I never gave you children."

Now Misty's quiet tears turn to sobs, and I put my arm around her trembling shoulders.

Luke, our first and only child, was born thirteen years ago, two years after we married. He was a beautiful child, but an undeveloped brain killed him after only three weeks. We tried to conceive again, but after two miscarriages and years of fertility specialists we finally gave up.

Misty could have allowed Luke's death to wreak havoc with her mind, but she's a resilient person, much more so than I am. She whipped her body back into shape and found useful ways to spend her time. For several years she wrote freelance magazine articles (her very first submission--a story describing reduced calorie consumption as a way to slow the aging process--was accepted by Ladies' Home Journal, paving the way for more than twenty sales to various small- and large-circulation magazines). And later she joined the local theater group, where she acted occasionally and wrote several original plays. Her mother also managed to convince her that God could help ease the pain, and for the first time since we married, she made church a Sunday routine.

I did not fare so well. Golf isn't therapeutic the way writing apparently is, and I haven't found, nor do I care to search for, God.

"What am I supposed to do, Misty? Just call up Batista and tell him I changed my mind? It's too late now. He's counting on me. Everyone is."

"They wouldn't be counting on you if you had listened to me in the first place! If you had respected the opinion of me, your wife, instead of confiding in your boss, instead of going all buddy-buddy with that slimeball."

"He's not a slimeball. If it wasn't for--"

"Oh, come on, Cameron! Now you're defending him? You've done nothing but complain about him for years! He's too young, a kid just out of college who has no business trying to direct seasoned workers. Those are your words."

"I know they are."

"And now, just because he chose you to die in this--"

"I'm not going to die."

"You think just because he chose you to try this ridiculous machine, you think he's gone from untested child to brilliant leader in the span of a few weeks."

I look out my own window and watch a short line of cars moving up the freeway entrance ramp from the feeder road. A black BMW, a silver Dodge truck, a red Chevrolet sedan. The accelerating Chevrolet farts a disturbingly large cloud of black smoke as it merges with traffic, adding a little spice to the already polluted, humid Houston air. A little spice, but not really a lot, not when you consider the other three million cars in the area, not when you consider the stinking refineries on the southeast side of town, not when you consider twenty million passengers a year flying in and out of the city's three commercial airports. Houston's air pollution, after all, is among the worst in the United States, often as toxic as perennial favorite Los Angeles.

Editorial Reviews

Cox's debut techno-thriller offers a far-fetched plot, a fast-paced narrative and a well-drawn protagonist. Cameron Fisher, an unhappily married accountant for a tech corporation, NeuroStor, is about to be fired when his younger boss offers him a one-time opportunity: participate in a high-risk scientific project for the company and receive $5 million. Cameron agrees, as much for the adventure as for the money. The project will theoretically permit near-instantaneous human transport; and sure enough, 45 minutes after he enters a booth at corporate HQ in Houston, Cameron emerges from another at the Phoenix office. Told to stick around for a couple of days, he meets his best friend, Tom. They go to a strip club where he is watched by two men and meets a dancer, Crystal, who somehow knows as much about the project he is participating in as he does. When the men follow Cameron and Tom to a golf course that same afternoon, he knows something is up; when they start shooting, the murder and espionage- packed plot kicks into overdrive. With the exception of the protagonist, whose backstory is astutely related, the characters are one-dimensional (evil corporate execs, stripper with apparent heart of gold, cranky computer expert). Cox has enough natural storytelling skill to keep his audience hooked, but the innumerable twists and turns test the reader's patience. Teleportation is just the starting point for a constantly morphing techno plot that even Matrix fans might find strained. Agent, Matt Bialer. (July) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

A psychological suspense debut carries on its jacket "The Matrix meets Mission Impossible." More apt would be Total Recall meets Blade Runner, Philip K. Dick's paranoia parables. The difference here is that Arnold's clone in Total Recall (who doesn't know he's a clone), and Harrison Ford's replicant in Blade Runner, who doesn't know he's a replicant, are likable heroes. Cameron Fisher, the clone of Rift, who doesn't know he's a clone, is boring and not at all likable. The main plot device keeps you hanging in there, but by the close you still don't care what happens to anybody. Cameron works for Rodrigo Batiste, the owner of NeuroStar, which plans to go public with its currently hush-hush transmission machines. These have been tried out successfully on dogs, although some observers suggest the transmission left the animals mangled. Rodrigo means to fire Cameron because he's so boring as a NeuroStar accountant-but instead offers him $5 million to be the first human transmission, from Houston to Phoenix. Cameron's wife Misty, a religious zealot following the brain death of their first child followed by two miscarriages, warns him that he may lose his soul in this transmission-and would that he had! He loses nothing, however, but wakes up in the transmission lab in Phoenix, meets up with his buddy Tom, and off they go to play golf. But first Tom wants to show Cameron a topless bar, and at the bar the most beautiful woman Cameron has ever seen sits alone with him at his table and begins talking about the transmission machines. Cameron has been at NeuroStar for five years and never heard of these secret devices-while here this beautiful topless dancer knows all about them. Then assassins killTom on the golf course, try to kill Cameron-and the rest is Cameron in flight, flight, flight. Strong middle, familiar ending. Agent: Matt Bialer/Trident Media Group

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

This novel was fantastic! I could really relate to the main character and kept wanting to know what was going to happen to him next. I think I'll get some more copies for stocking stuffers this year.

Guest

More than 1 year ago

Exciting, suspenseful, and thrilling. A good read for a few evenings, if you can wait. You will keep coming back to see what happens to Cameron. Had not heard of author before, but saw on New Fiction rack and gave it a try. I am happy with the results.

harstan

More than 1 year ago

NeuroStar owner Rodrigo Batiste is planning to offer tele-transporation to the public after successful trials with dogs; though the braver witnesses note that the canines came out of the tests mentally confused. Needing a human guinea pig, Rodrigo selects boring company accountant Cameron Fisher, who was to be fired anyway. Over the concern of his religious fanatical spouse who worries that he could lose his soul, Cameron accepts the five million dollars in return to his transportation from Houston to Phoenix................................... Less than an hour after Cameron entered the transmission booth in Houston, he arrives at the Phoenix office. Cameron and his best friend go to a strip joint where they meet dancer, Crystal, who knows more about the top secret project than Cameron does (don¿t ask Richard Cox don¿t tell). Cameron and Tom next go to a golf course, but two men follow and kill his pal. Cameron flees with the assassins in pursuit.................................... RIFT is an exciting fast-paced techno-thriller that keeps changing the theme of the tale starting with science fiction and ending in espionage with plenty of action along the way. Cameron is a terrific protagonist who does not quite know what the machine truly did to him, but will find out (along with surprised readers) before too long. The support cast is stereotyped whether they work for Neurostar, strip, or are killers yet between the reluctant hero and his exploits to live (loose definition) fans will enjoy this wild thriller....................... Harriet Klausner